


golden hour

by mareas



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: I wrote this to cope, M/M, honestly it's not angsty at all it just looks that way, space thieves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22791733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareas/pseuds/mareas
Summary: Soonyoung steals for a living, and watches the sunset for a living, and loves Jihoon for a living.
Relationships: Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Comments: 14
Kudos: 97





	golden hour

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes u have brief existential crises and u write short stories about those to cope. enjoy.

Soonyoung thinks he should’ve known he was going to be a thief the first time he stole a kiss.

It was one of those times back then, when days had been blurring into one another and everything seemed too long and too slow. Jihoon didn’t particularly like the heat, but Soonyoung remembers him saying something like, “I go out sometimes and kinda hope the sun will burn my skin. Not in a bad way. Just, you know? To break routine.” _To feel something,_ Soonyoung had filled in the blanks.

Jihoon was fine. It was just sometimes, sometimes everything seemed the same, and when that happened, every major thing seemed a bit pointless. Including the passage of time, and upholding interpersonal connections, and life itself. Repetition messes with the brain like that. 

So, on the rare occasions when Jihoon was in that mood, Soonyoung would walk with him. They walked down the beach in the sweltering heat of five in the afternoon, but it was fine, because they took off their shoes and let the cold water wash over their toes, and the wind would tangle their hair, and it all built the illusion that they weren’t both getting sunburned. 

They had a spot under these big rocks where they could sit and watch the sunset. It was Soonyoung’s favorite part of their little ritual, because that’s when he was able to zero his attention in on Jihoon only. He got distracted easily, and when they were walking his thoughts flew away in circles like the seagulls and the clouds above. Not anymore, though. While Jihoon soaked up the sun, Soonyoung watched him.

He started with the hands, Jihoon’s hands where he was hugging his knees. They were big and looked so delicate, like they’d be shown in a slideshow teaching human anatomy to art students. His nail beds were pink and his fingers pointy. They were really good hands, Soonyoung thought. He remembers wanting to reach out at that moment and grab Jihoon’s hand, feel the bone and muscle and cartilage under the skin. Soonyoung’s hands were chubby, but Jihoon’s weren’t. Soonyoung thought holding them would feel different. He wanted to try.

Then he’d focus on Jihoon’s face. His hair was black and long enough to fall over his eyes. He would reach up and push it away with a long finger sometimes. Soonyoung liked it like that, but he wished it wouldn’t cover the mole under his left eye. Then there were his ears. They were shaped cute. Soonyoung felt weird for thinking it, but they were small and round and he couldn’t help it. The heat had created a gradient, making the lobes Jihoon’s usual skin color, and then growing brighter and pinker until it reached the tips, bright red at this point.

Jihoon’s eyelashes were longer than you’d think. They cast shadows on his cheekbones when he looked down. It took a while for Soonyoung to realize, but now he could never ever stop realizing. His lips were the lightest pink. Soonyoung had a hypothesis. It was that the sea breeze blew salt onto their faces and into their hair, and every once in a while, Jihoon would swipe his tongue over his lips and lick it off. Every single time, Soonyoung had paid attention, every single time they finished walking down the beach, Jihoon’s lips were a few shades darker from licking them too much.

And his face was pink too. The sun had done her job and it made Soonyoung feel so damn stupid that he was kind of jealous. The sun could kiss Jihoon’s skin and she met no resistance. She could play around, cast shadows, turn his skin a million shades of pink and he greeted her openly. It was stupid, so fucking stupid to be jealous of the sun. She was a source of life and Soonyoung was just Soonyoung.

And then, something incredible happened. The sun was setting, getting fainter by the second, about to hide behind the sea. Suddenly, the whole world was bathed in orange light. It lasted for all of thirty seconds. Soonyoung thought it would’ve lasted longer if it weren’t for the clouds near the horizon, but thirty seconds were enough. 

Jihoon’s face was painted gold. Soonyoung couldn’t have conceived it if he had tried, but the sight of it made his stomach turn. He’d always thought Jihoon was beautiful, but none of the versions of Jihoon he had witnessed up until then were as beautiful as this one, gold tangled in his hair and eyelashes, gold on his face, gold caressing his fingers. Soonyoung breathed in and it felt different, he felt as if he was inhaling fairy dust. He felt unraveled.

And then the sun hid behind a cloud. A thirty second golden hour. _Selfish,_ Soonyoung thought. She gave him everything and then took it away. That was the problem. During those thirty seconds he felt superhuman, like he was picked to witness immeasurable beauty. But now the sun was gone and he was back to being made of flesh and bone, and his human desires came back in a nanosecond but ten times as strong. He felt an almost primitive need to breathe Jihoon in, to feel him close. Observing wasn’t enough anymore.

“When I close my eyes,” he started, not knowing what he was doing, just knowing that he needed to do something, “and face the sun, I see shapes in neon dancing behind my eyelids. Try it.”

Jihoon did. He closed his eyes and stared at the sun, already half hidden in the horizon.

“I don’t see anything,” he said, opening his eyes.

“Keep ‘em closed longer,” Soonyoung told him.

Jihoon closed his eyes and turned towards the ocean again. And then Soonyoung, acting on instinct, twisted his body towards Jihoon’s as much as he could, and feeling mostly like a man possessed, leaned in and covered Jihoon’s lips with his. 

Jihoon seemed to hold his breath in shock, and then slowly, very slowly, exhaled through his nose, and Soonyoung felt it against his cheek. His heart was racing inside his chest, he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but he felt young and ridiculous, and there was warmth spreading everywhere inside him, a different warmth than the one of the sun. 

He pulled away for a second, two, and then leaned back in for more. And then Jihoon veritably broke him beyond repair by pressing back. It was the slightest pressure, extremely uncertain, but it was there and Soonyoung could feel it like it burned. He still doesn't know how long he spent there, just feeling Jihoon’s lips against his in a chaste kiss and barely moving. 

He pulled away for good and looked at Jihoon’s face. Jihoon opened his eyes and focused them everywhere on Soonyoung’s face except his own eyes, and Soonyoung just watched. Jihoon’s face was pink again, but it was different. When the sun kissed him, it breathed life into him. When Soonyoung kissed him, he came alive on his own. 

Soonyoung turned away and sat facing the ocean again, his heart a billion sizes too big.

“Did you see them?” he asked, licking his lips and hoping he could taste Jihoon on them. He couldn’t.

“I saw them,” says Jihoon quietly.

And Soonyoung knew, after that stolen kiss, that he’d go to the end of the world for the illusion of Jihoon.

Now, years later, they live the lives of thieves. Transformation is everything, nothing remains for too long, and neither do they.

But it’s okay. There’s mostly no monotony, since they left it behind when they left their home planet. The thing is, Jihoon never liked repetition. He is happier out here, where all they can get used to is perpetual change. When they have to raid abandoned places, Jihoon takes objects of seemingly no value, and makes something out of them. He’s a creator. Soonyoung thinks maybe it was always that, maybe Jihoon felt too powerless in a world that could influence him in every way, and over which he had no influence whatsoever. It’s like he’s found his niche. He innovates. He embraces the unexpected.

And Jihoon isn’t the only one who prefers constant change. Soonyoung gets bored easily, but out here he can’t. He isn’t that good at creating stuff, he’s better at going places. He doesn’t really use maps, he’s bad with those, so he actually works on instinct. There’s just something about the way things are set up in space, he doesn’t know, but navigating it comes naturally to him.

The problem with constant change is you start to lose yourself. There’s nothing that remains for long enough to tether yourself to, so you start floating away. They both notice that. So Soonyoung steals a camera, one of the really old ones, and starts taking pictures. And Jihoon starts turning their stolen ship into a home. He missed the ocean the most, so now they have a fish tank. Soonyoung didn’t think it was possible to have those in space, but Jihoon adapts to inconvenience really easily. He finds a way. His mind works differently like that. 

“You know,” Soonyoung tells him one day, “if we ever have to abandon this ship, you’ll lose all of those little things you’ve made.”

“I know,” Jihoon says. “And if that happens, we’ll steal another one and I’ll build new ones.”

And just like that, they find a way to remain. But more importantly, they find a way to love.

For example, Soonyoung likes taking Jihoon places. It takes him a while to get the coordinates right, but he manages eventually, and lands the ship on a beach, in some planet in a corner of the universe. 

“It’s not like yours,” he says, looking at the pink color of the water. Just like back home, it reflects the color of the sky. And there’s no sand, just smooth rocks that look like they’re made of crystals, giving off pale blue hues. “But, y’know. I figured —"

“I don’t want it to be like mine,” Jihoon tells him, and stands on his tiptoes to kiss him.

And Jihoon reciprocates. Soonyoung hasn't found a way to look at the pictures he’s taken. He keeps thinking next time he’ll steal some type of console, or a projector, or something. He doesn’t have to. Jihoon builds one for him, and regrets it when half the pictures end up being pictures of him. 

Some days it feels like monotony is beginning to set back in, kind of like a looming cloud overhead, and going new places or making new things doesn’t seem to be enough. It feels like they have to change _themselves._ Soonyoung figures Jihoon has found a way to deal with that the day he steps out of his lab with bright red hair. Soonyoung stares at him without saying a word.

“Do you hate it?” Jihoon asks eventually.

“Would you change it if I said I hate it?” he says. He doesn’t hate it at all. 

“No,” Jihoon smiles at him. “I’d keep it for longer.”

Soonyoung smiles back.

He wakes up one day to Jihoon sitting on his hips, red hair a mess on his head. He settles his hands on Jihoon’s thighs and looks at him. It must be the fourth or fifth sunrise of the day.

“Your head is covering the light right now,” he says, “so it looks like you have a crazy orange halo.”

Jihoon tangles their fingers together. “Take a picture, then.”

It ends up being Soonyoung’s favorite. Jihoon never poses for him, just goes on with his regular activities and lets Soonyoung figure out when to snap a picture. In this one their fingers are still intertwined, Jihoon had pulled their linked hands up to kiss Soonyoung’s, so they show up in the picture, pressed lightly against Jihoon’s cheek. There’s a really soft smile on his face, halo around his head, flush high on his cheeks. Really damn beautiful.

Soonyoung finds his own way to deal with looming monotony by punching holes in his ears. It doesn’t hurt. It’s satisfying, it calms him down to know he looks different. Plus, finding things to make into earrings is fun. So it goes.

He learns that there’s nothing like love in space, where time stretches thin and then thickens, where space grows wide and then minuscule. Soonyoung feels his love grow, just like the expanding edges of the universe. When he gets to push Jihoon against one of the large windows and make love to him with a backdrop of an infinity of stars, there’s nothing like that.

“What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever stolen?” Jihoon asks him after, tracing patterns on Soonyoung’s chest. It’s an easy one. 

“You.”

“Idiot,” Jihoon snorts against his skin. “It’s not stealing if it’s consensual. You think I didn’t wanna come with you?”

Soonyoung stays quiet for a while before answering.

“I think I stole you away from many things that you loved. Like the ocean.”

“I do love the ocean,” Jihoon says, “but I always loved you more.”

Soonyoung thinks maybe the boundaries of the universe aren’t expanding fast enough to fit all the love that he has. Maybe it’s his ever growing love that’s pushing them further and further away.

His favorite thing, despite it all, is still golden hour. It happens often in space, and sometimes it lasts for what feels like forever. He guesses “golden hour” was never an accurate name. But still, sometimes he walks into Jihoon’s lab and just sits. The sun shines into the room through the windows and paints everything gold, and Soonyoung rests his chin on his hand and watches Jihoon work. It’s his favorite thing to do. He doesn’t know what happens in Jihoon’s brain, but sometimes he laughs while he works. Other times he blinks really hard for no reason, as if trying to clear his head. They’re small details, but Soonyoung feels proud that he gets to identify them.

“Your hair color is fading,” he says. Jihoon ignores him. “It looks like strawberry cheesecake.”

Jihoon still ignores him, but keeps working with a tiny little smile on his face.

“Come here for a second,” he says, so Soonyoung stands up and walks around the table to stand in front of him. “Hand.”

Soonyoung raises his hand and Jihoon puts something around his wrist. Soonyoung doesn’t know what he’s making, it kind of looks like a watch. He presses a button on the side and the screen lights up, then he fiddles with it some more. Soonyoung stops paying attention to that, focuses on Jihoon’s fingers bathed in orange light, on the blond hues of his hair, on the frown on his face.

He can’t help himself. He doesn’t like to kill Jihoon’s vibe, but he can’t help himself. He reaches up with his other hand, places two fingers under Jihoon’s chin to make him look up, and kisses him right there. The sun is warm on his skin and Jihoon’s mouth falls open under his, and the softness of his lips penetrates bone deep. Soonyoung only pulls away when the thing around his wrist beeps.

“Ah, shit,” Jihoon says, looking down at it just in time to see the screen go dark. “You’re distracting me.”

“Sorry,” Soonyoung says, and kisses him again.

Jihoon pushes him away eventually, and Soonyoung sits back and watches again, and this time it’s better, because the whole world is golden, and Jihoon’s lips are red and wet and his cheeks are pink and the little smile never leaves his face. 

And if Soonyoung can have this, if this is his permanence in impermanence, then it’s enough, and it’ll be enough forever.

**Author's Note:**

> i'd be lying if i said this was meant to be posted on valentine's day. the idea came to me on sunday while studying, developed on monday while i took a shower, and was written tuesday morning while i skipped class. i honestly think it's very up in the clouds, but i had to get the existentialism out of my system and this is the shape it morphed into. so this was more like... something for me. but i hope it was somewhat enjoyable anyway! 
> 
> if u read the whole thing, thank u so much as always.
> 
> hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hug_mp3) or on [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/hug_mp3) <3


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